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In 2017
I accepted a comission on "The Sorcerer" from Nocturna models, sculpted by Pedro Fernandez Ramos. It is a really cool looking model, but really complex in its dynamic pose and its level of detail. The client asked for a gaming base as he has a big collection of cool figures to play Dungeons & Dragons on a beautiful wargaming table.

The Sorcerer on his simple gaming base

Priming him black and white helps me to see and understand volumes

Such a dynamic pose.
Here you can see that I had to sculpt something to the base. I used small pieces of Milliput to create a circle of magic around the sorcerer. Unfortanetely I made no photo of it, but really it is just some small plates of Milliput.

I was really free in my color choices
and my vision for the magic wielding guy. My essential thoughts were:

is he a novice, a journeyman sorcerer or an impressive master of his magic

what is he wearing there? High end silk robes with fragiles magic woven elements on it or a ragged off old fabric

As he is so into that "I am casting a spell now!!" I also needed to think about the magic effect I wanted to create

I checked back with the sculpt itself
as often the sculptor gives inital hints of the character. His clothes are ragged off, have damage here and there and overall he does not look like the most fancy sorcerer around. He looks more like a wanderer, strolling around or a guy who runs throuh dungeons with his friends, the dwarf, the elf and the barbarian. Something like that.

As the basework was the clients decision I went in some natural colors for the cloak too and placed basic colors all over the place to understand my proper vision.

... and decided for a fire spell.
Well, let's hope he is not a Novice in ragged clothes that might burn himself. I sketched in the reds of the fire.

As I enjoy a brown basecoat for painting brighter grey robes that look ragged off and dirty I did bring in the color I wanted to see there by mixing in more and more cold grey into my brown basecolor. With this way I am able to control my highlight work really nice.

The red of the fire recieved more work with orange and even a little yellow was scattered there.

While I painted in this stage
I already took care on the areas that would be influanced by the red glow of his spell. No, they are not burning, just glowing and reflecting another light source. You know that I like to paint this.

Somehow this is close, let's really hope he is not burning himself :D

In the meantime I also painted the small details on his belt and worked on his hair and skin.

While I painted the metallics I also thought about stronger reflections of the fire as metal is a surface that reflects light and shadow influance much stronger than oldd fabrics for example. Always check back with my thumb to see what colors I used.

From below you can see the glow.

From the top, not.

I worked more on the fire and created black frames to the top parts of it by painting small dots and random areas. This really made the fire roar.

I increased the contrast in the cloak and other areas.
What I found diffcult in this model was to find its golden angle, the best view on the figure. There is no real front side and as he moves so dynamic this was what I felt was my favourite angle:

This is not somehow ...

I really enjoyed the look of the fire ...

This sculpt has so much cool angles ...

I mean, really. Lovely. I placed him on a plinth for presentation, but kept him removable for his gaming purposes. I used blue tac below his base.

... and so many possibilities in color of the magic.

Doing final photos of him I decided to go for a dark background to make the fire pop out:

If you like to support or say thanks the monkeys of Massive Voodoo in what they do, please feel invited to drop a jungle donation in their direction via paypal or check their miniatures they got on sale here.

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